Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions [Comics]

Everything has a beginning, and apparently the idea of intentionally publishing a series of comics that had a fixed end point didn't come around until 1982! The Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions was billed as "mighty Marvel's very first Limited Series--a special, all-new kind of comic book series designed to run a finite number of issues. . . . [A]s a very special treat to kick off this new format, we have chosen a project that encompasses all of Marvel's stalwart super-stars in a single senses-staggering epic."

It's true, as claimed, that every super-hero in the Marvel Universe circa 1982 makes an appearance in Contest of Champions, but the limited series was only three issues long so most get only a brief cameo in a crowd shot. (if you can identify every single hero in the picture below, you have earned my deep praise and mild pity).

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What crisis of epic proportions could bring all of Marvel's heroes together in one place? Well, an enormously powerful cosmic being known as the Grandmaster has made a bet with another enormously powerful cosmic being named The Unknown (Twenty-Eight Year Old SPOILER! It's Death): if the heroes chosen by the Grandmaster can recover more shards of the "Golden Globe of Life" before the heroes chosen by Death, Death will restore to life the Grandmaster's brother, the Collector. On the autre main, if Death's team wins, she gets to slay the Grandmaster. And if Earth's heroes don't participate, the planet's inhabitants will remain in stasis forever.

After a first issue that basically shows the heroes being teleported away from their normal business to hear the rules, issue two picks up with the contest proper. Each of these contests work in exactly the same way: the Grandmaster's team of three and Death's team of three are teleported to the same remote location and charged with finding a shard of the Golden Globe of Life. For some reason, I'm not sure why, each member of the teams decides to go off on their own until they eventually stumble upon a member of an opposing team.* They fight, and sooner or later somebody happens across the shard and that team wins. Then another pair of teams are dispatched, until a total of four rounds are played. It's all very repetitive, but I was only five years old in 1982 and would have appreciated that if I read comics back then.

* It's a little like old Justice League comics, where the heroes would separate and, no matter who the villain was, there would be an underwater threat so Aquaman could get in on the action.

ROUND 1: Team Grandmaster (Daredevil, Russian hero Darkstar, new Australian hero Talisman) beats Team Death (Iron Fist, Invisible "Girl", and Sunfire) when Daredevil manages to swim through icy waters for the shard. A mild upset here, in my mind: Daredevil and Iron Fist basically cancel each other out, but Sunfire should simply outpower Darkstar and Invisible Girl-Woman has the edge in experience over Talisman.

ROUND 2: Team Death (Iron Man, Arabian Knight, new Israeli hero Sabra) manages to even things up by beating Team Grandmaster (She-Hulk, Captain Britain, and new Argentinian hero Defensor). A fair contest, in my humble opinion. Iron Man once punched out the Hulk-Hulk, so I give him the edge over the She-Hulk. However, Captain Britain has been depicted as pretty powerful in recent decades, and I'd definitely favor him over either or both of Iron Man's allies.

ROUND 3: Team Grandmaster (Wolverine, the Thing, and new French hero Le Peregrine) triumph over Team Death (Angel, Black Panther, and Russian hero Vanguard). I know Vanguard is supposed to be the Russkie equivalent of Thor, but Wolverine and the Thing are such heavyweights that Team Death would have to hope Black Panther could come up with some sort of ingenious plan. As for Angel, never really liked the character--flying is cool, but are you really just going to punch bad guys the jaw?

ROUND 4: Team Grandmaster (Captain America, Sasquatch, and new German hero Blitzkrieg) loses, but still wins against Team Death (Storm, new Irish hero Shamrock, new Chinese hero The Collective Man*)! Okay, the results of this match are confusing. Before this round, Team Grandmaster held a 2-1 lead over Team Death. In this round, Shamrock uses her incredible luck powers to snag the shard for Team Death, which should tie things up at 2-2. However, the comic reports the score as 3-1 in favor of Team Grandmaster and that's the assumption the ending proceeds on. Were there World Cup referees involved in the Contest of Champions?

* At this point, you may be saying "Dude, what's up with all the brand-new, and never or hardly ever seen again super-heroes from outside the U.S.?" Well, Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions was originally supposed to be a big tie-in to the 1980 Olympics. Since the U.S. withdrew from the Games, however, Marvel creatively repurposed the book. However, the internationally-themed heroes stuck.

Death tells Grandmaster she'll hold up her end of the bargain, but she slips in a heretofore unknown catch: the assembled Golden Globe of Life can restore his brother, but another life has to be sacrificed to power it. In other words, Grandmaster has to commit suicide to bring his bro' back. And he does! The heroes are promptly returned to Earth, and everyone except the Grandmaster presumably live happily ever after until Contest of Champions II in 1999.